


Reflections

by Stinacat



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, I broke myself a little with this one, just a heads up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2226243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stinacat/pseuds/Stinacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all about healing. Or running away to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> So I was recently in Italy...this was floating around in my head and I pretty much wrote it all on my first day. It's a bit tidier than in it's first form, but largely the same. I couldn't tell you why this particular subject affects me that much - it's definitely not through personal experience - but it really does.

It comes in waves.

Sometimes - most of the time, really - you're fine. You can get on with your day, week, life, anything you like. People on the street don't know and you don't feel the need to tell then.

But sometimes you feel raw. Raw and hurting and broken. It's not as bad as it was, not as primal and unforgiving as immediately after, but people can tell, when you feel like that. Their eyes change when they look at you, searching and then pitying, and you feel like a wild animal.

Ryan always knows, though.

You're not sure where you'd be without him, because he's been so strong and solid even though you know he has his own waves. You catch it in his eyes sometimes; the sadness you know lurks in your own.

You can't really believe it, that he got more than a few days off work, let alone a few weeks, not with everything going on there. But Burnie sounded almost relieved when he told you, and you wonder what Ryan’s been like in the other office, without having to be the strong one for you.

-

Rome is a whirlwind for the most part, as it's wont to be in the middle of summer. The flat you stay in doesn't have air conditioning but a pedestal fan and wide, shuttered windows and it's all a bit dreamy with the gauzy white curtains.

Generally you both hate to be one of the couples constantly attached at the hip (and mouth) but it's so easy to get swept up and sit on piazza steps until dusk with your heads bent close and words like whispers, and stand in lines using one another for shade.

Ryan gets burnt the first full day, neck angry red where your shoulders are only tinged pink. You giggle a bit rubbing aloe vera on him in the hotel room, and he returns the favour, every bit of his heart in his eyes as you sit chest to chest with tangled legs on the soft bed.

You take pictures and wait in queues and ride on busses and eat gelato, and if you feel guilty at all it’s because you forget to. It's easy to forget when you purposely miss Ryan’s mouth and smear cold ice cream in the few day old stubble with a smirk on your face and he just shakes his head and sighs, but you can see the slight upward quirk of his mouth that means trouble. Which is confirmed when he grabs you and instead of kissing you wipes it off all over your cheek and you're both laughing and there are other people around you rolling their eyes.

You painstakingly write out postcards to everyone while he showers, naked as the day you were born on the white sheets, just because you can be. Ryan’s certainly not going to complain, after all. You're just signing one off to Gavin, Michael and Lindsay (because you know it will make them happy to see all three of their names on something,  instead of just Mr and Mrs Jones or Mr free) when he emerges from the bathroom,  towel slung low around his hips. You pretend not to look at him because you know he'll see the hunger in your eyes; he's solid and rugged and tapered in all the right places so you watch him through your eyelashes as you count the cards again, making sure you've put the right stamps on.

But he knows. He gets a silly smile at your lack of clothing and He must feel your eyes on him because he walks over to the bed, drops the towel and takes the cards off you, secreting them in the nightstand. You let him rearrange you both until you're curled on top of him and you're breathing one another's air.

It's not until the last day in Rome that the other feeling creeps up on you. You suppose it's because you're tired. You wake up fine, go out and take pictures and hold hands and curl into the corner booth of a tea room for lunch. But by the time you get back to the hotel in the late afternoon you can feel it.

Ryan lets you shower in peace, and when you come out he's reading on the bed, propped up by some of the dozen or so pillows. You throw on one of his shirts and climb across to him, burying your face in his stomach and inhaling deeply. Without stopping in his reading he rests a hand in your damp hair, tangled in the honeyed strands.

He asks if you're okay, and you must nod your head too fast or tense or _something_ , because his hand slides down underneath the collar of the shirt, cool and big on the back of your neck right over the name inked there, and he says 'no you're not'.

But he lets you lie there breathing him in as long as you like, and when you lift your head he's effortless in pulling you up so your head rests on his chest and he surrounds you with his arms, and you listen to his heart as he buries his nose in your hair.

-

Assisi is much quieter.

You spend most of the train ride with your legs draped across Ryan’s lap, humming the songs playing on your iPod because there's nobody else in your compartment. He joins in sometimes and you like the sound of his voice as you hear it deep in his chest, heart keeping time.

You get off and settle in after a short walk where your shoulders bump together and you tease him about how wanting to take all of the bags is so southern, and although he tries to defend himself he can't help smiling.

You take a picture and send it to his mother.

Assisi is quintessentially a country town, it's slow and the air seems thick and hazy, especially after Rome and its floods of tourists - there's only a trickle there. You have to speak more Italian and it makes Ryan grin in a way that makes you blush.

The first day you walk up to the hilltop town under the beating down sun instead of taking the bus. The two of you race to the top and he catches you around the waist by the main square and spins you around to kiss you until you feel dizzy.

When he relents and pulls away, shining bright smile on his face, you notice a white robed nun watching with fondness. You smile at her and the look she gives you is so peaceful it makes your heart hurt.

Neither of you being particularly religious, you go into the basilica out of a sense of 'why not' rather than any feeling of obligation. It's cool, and quiet, and peaceful, and you notice immediately the stillness. Ryan’s hand stays linked loosely with yours as you wander around.

The thing about churches is that they're quiet, and without people around or more than a murmured acknowledgement of someone else's presence, always with downcast eyes and a respectful nod, you're stuck in your head with thoughts you don't even know you have.

Looking up at the cross you feel a shiver pass over you and your free hand begins toying with the ornate silver necklace, one Ryan got you years ago, when you first started dating. It's rarely off your person. It's not a moment of religious fervour you're having, you're pretty sure of that, but there is a feeling you get in the old church and it rattles you enough to leave you quiet for the rest of the day.

-

Florence has you like a child, again filled with life like Rome. Ryan laughs and holds your hand tightly as you look around unashamedly, because on your last visit it hadn't held the wonder of being able to explore.

You also promised Jack that you were taking assassins creed pictures everywhere and you intend to live up to it.

Ryan hasn't said much about Assisi, he seemed to fall just as much into his own head as you after the church. But it wasn't altogether uncomfortable, he's just seemed unwilling to let you go too far from him since, so you let him stand close and brush against you and hold you. You don't mind; you're just as tactile as he is and it's always been that way.

He falls face first onto the plush hotel bed as soon as he gets close, a satisfied groan leaving his mouth that makes you giggle. You chamber up next to him and sit on the small of his back, stretched over him until with a typically Ryan burst of energy he turns underneath you and you're perched on his stomach. His hands are insistent on pulling you down until your breaths mingle and he takes your mouth, and he touches you like glass.

You don't see much of Florence the first day.

-

Ryan happily takes pictures of you in Ezio - related locations, and you're sure to wear a long white dress with a black belt and red headscarf to be as stealthily assassin - looking as you could. You and Ryan get a kick out of it anyway.

You climb up onto a rock by the Ponte vecchio and your dress and the scarf in your hair flow out behind you and you laugh until Ryan can't help himself and starts laughing too, and you're sure you both look crazy to everyone around.

But it doesn't matter because he settles the camera down by your bags and grabs tight around the top of your legs. You feel like you're in an awful rom com when he spins you around and you can feel him laughing into your stomach while you cling onto his shoulders.

You're too busy with your entire world being Ryan to notice but when he puts you down, huge smile still on his face and taking care to land you gently in your feet, somebody's left  2 old fashioned Polaroids tucked under your bag.

At first you're amazed that the bags are still there with everything in them, never mind the camera, if you didn't notice someone coming up and putting the photos there, and then you look at them properly. The first one is just after Ryan picked you up, when you're surprised and delighted and your arms are more or less wrapped around his head, but it's the second one that makes you stop. In that one, he's looking up at you and you're looking down at him and it looks like something from a photo shoot and you can feel the utter joy again just looking at it.

He hooks his head over your shoulder and his arms are like a vice around your middle as he looks at them over your shoulder. 'It's a sign' he says quietly, stubble scratching pleasantly against your cheek as he kisses it.

You slip the Polaroids into the innermost pocket of your bag, wedged between more postcards you bought, to keep them safe.

You don't ever want to let them out of your sight again.

-

Montecatini is as you remember it from a long ago visit; quiet and provincial in every sense.

You watch Ryan unwind completely on the walk up to the cable cars to get to the alto part of the town. He seems more relaxed than you've seen him since...well, before.

And while you think you're just going to relax and take advantage of the small town before Venice and tourist central again, he surprises you. The first day he doesn't just insist you go to the spa, he seems to enjoy it, splashing water lazily at you in the Turkish bath and amusing himself while you get a manicure.

The next day you wake up curled into his side, an arm around your shoulders. He kisses you thoroughly and tells you he's made plans for your day, but just smirks and refuses to say what they are.

He's infuriating through breakfast (on the terrace outside) and like a child at Christmas when he tells you to wear jeans and your converse. So just to spite him you slip the Ryan the guy t shirt Gavin had put in the suitcase as a joke on. Ryan just rolls his eyes and takes your hand anyway, and it makes you wish - a little bit, anyway - that you'd let Barbara draw a dick on it like she'd offered. 

When you end up at a stable and an older man with two horses greets the two of you, you nearly burst into tears. You haven't ridden since you were a child and he knows, because Ryan always knows.

The old man gives you directions and a map, which to your eternal surprise, Ryan accepts in accented but correct Italian. You realize you're staring at him but you can't very well stop. When he notices he just shrugs and says 'I've gotta surprise you somehow'.

You stay quiet for the first part of the ride because you just don't know what to say. Ryan seems content to let you process, except when you've been going for half an hour, alternating between walking and trotting, he points to a clearing and tells you to go into it.

You do start crying then, when you see the picnic spread out on the bench, although it's more a steady flow from your eyes than gasping sobs, which you're glad about. You think he hasn't noticed as you hitch the horses by their feed and water, except once that's done he wraps you up with tight arms around your head and shoulders so that you can't do anything but bury your face in his chest. 'I didn't mean to make you cry.' He says, quiet and just for you.

You shake your head, saying that's not it at all, you just can't believe what he's managed to orchestrate. Slowly, surrounded by him, you calm down, and eventually work your head through his arms to look up at him. You still can't quite believe he's yours.  Maybe you never will. But after everything he's there and that's what matters.

You eat under the shade of a huge tree. You're not content to sit on your own, so angle your chair in a way that lets you drape your legs over his lap.

There's nothing but the sound of your voices and it's like the two of you exist in a bubble where you're the only two alive and nothing can hurt you, not anymore.

-

You love Venice in a haunting, familiar way. The winding streets and hole in the wall shops and bridges and canals. Sometimes, when you let yourself, you think that maybe you spent a past life here.

Ryan is happy to trail behind you, hands loosely clasped together as you wander with misdirected determination.

Because you have to go back, after this. You can't stand the thought but you'll need to go back to your life and face reality.

The hotel that you're staying at is the most expensive of the trip, because why not? It's your last few nights in a country you adore and would see a thousand times over if you could.

Ryan seems to sense your strange recklessness, and tempers it in his usual way; he's the calm you seek out when you wake up panting the second night there, dreams invaded by things you wish had stayed there and were all too real. 

As you frantically seek him out in the huge bed with the single mindedness of blind terror, you realize he's already holding you, cool hands either side of your neck as he tries to make you look at him.

And then you see it in his eyes by the full moon light through the curtains; the blue is so sad it's like a dam breaks and you crumble against him, trembling with everything you've tried to ignore and guiltily forgotten about for two weeks after three months of trying.

You're holding onto him so tight you can feel your fingers dimpling his skin, and it's a small measure of comfort that he holds you just as tight back, arms like a vice around your shoulders, though it does nothing to stop your choking sobs.

And then you feel how shuddery his own breathing is, and how his shoulders shake and you didn't think you could feel worse but you plummet into it headfirst because if anyone doesn't deserve it it's Ryan.

You tell him you're sorry over and over until you forget what the words mean and you can't work out your thoughts at all, they're so snarled and dark.

He shakes his head and when you don't stop he tells you to, low and deep in his chest so it rumbles against your ear; 'Just stop.'

'I'm so sorry.'

'You don't need to be.' The hitch in his voice confirms it, and you know for sure you aren't the only one crying.

'But it was my fault. And everyone always asks about me and nobody asks how you are and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

You hear him sniff and then inhale, air rushing out like a sigh afterwards. He unwraps his arms and draws your head up with gentle hands, thumbs on your cheeks tracking under your eyelids to stem the flow from your eyes. 'It wasn't your fault.' His eyes are red and he looks so tired. You wonder if he's been sleeping at all.

'But-'

He shakes his head with more vehemence and a bit of a spark in his eyes. 'They told you, they told _us_ ; it wasn't any body's fault.'

'But why then.'

He looks at you all sad eyes and soft mouth, and rests your foreheads together as if his neck can't hold his head up anymore. 'There isn't a why.' One of his hands slides around to the back of your neck, and you know he's looking for the slightly raised skin where the new-ish black ink is. 'It's just an awful thing that happened.'

'To us.'

He sighs again, thumb running over the tattoo. 'To us. Both of us.'

You don't know how long you sit like that, heads bowed together and you think it's a miracle that it took so long for both of you to break down.

Except then you think about it more and you aren't really surprised, because home is full of the strongest support you can imagine. Home has Lindsay, who's like your sister and who was so fiercely protective as soon as it happened she'd barely let anyone near you. And it has Gavin and Michael, who sat and played day after day of steam games in silence with you, sandwiched between them, until you felt like talking was easier than crying.

It's got Geoff, who helped Ryan quietly take everything out of the room you can't bear to think about, and held him without expectation and without judgment when he needed someone who wasn't you, and Griffon, who gave you a place to escape when the house was suffocating, and a place where it was okay to scream and break things, and held you after when you felt utterly empty and destroyed.

It's got Barbara, and Jack and Caiti and miles and Arryn and Gus and Esther and Burnie and Ashley and everyone in your little oddball family who look out for each other and hold each other up, even when your own little part of it vanished right in front of you.

Eventually Ryan lies down, still holding on to you tightly like he can't bear to let you go, but you don't particularly want him to, so it suits you just fine. Now that's it's all finally spilled out you feel wrung out and bone tired, and Ryan looks like he feels the same.  

-

You're sad about it being your last evening, and Ryan seems quiet too, as you walk the cobbled streets with interlocked fingers just as the sun begins to set.

You feel him stop again and just like ten minutes before you catch him taking a picture of you. He shrugs, completely unapologetic grin on his face, and takes another one for good measure.

You wrestle the camera off him in the middle of the street and return the favour, giggling. He tries to look severe and scolding but there's a twinkle in his eye and it fills you with hope, that maybe everything will be okay.

You tell him that you're confiscating the camera and bury it in your bag. As nice as all the photographs of your trip are, you want tonight burned into your memory through your eyes, not a lens.

He shakes his head and rolls his eyes and grabs your hand again, leading you through the throngs of people. It's late, but the sun is only just beginning to set. You love summer in Europe more than anywhere else because there's a current that runs through the air. It's not like anything else you've ever known, but it's there and it's solid and constant.

Ryan pulls you into a nearly packed full restaurant and a waiter immediately takes you to a corner table. You start to think he planned it like that when there's immediately a glass of wine in front of you and the menus are taken away.

There are fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, and then Ryan laughs. He tells you that you look suspicious and you retort that he's sneaky like that; you have to be on your toes. He looks at you like he's considering something for a second, then he reaches into his pocket. 

Which is about when you start to panic. Because if he's going to do what you think he's going to do, you don't want it. Not at the moment anyway, when you're both still grieving and breaking and putting each other back together.

But then he must see that on your face too and he smiles gently. He slides a flat, square box across the table and tells you to open it.

And there is a ring inside, but it's on a thin, silver looking chain.

'What does this mean?' You ask, hand at your throat to try and stop the flush going over your skin.

He lifts a shoulder in a half shrug and you can see him stringing words together in his head before they spill out of his mouth. 'Whatever you want it to?' You must look incredulous because he laughs. 'I just mean…it can be like a…promise. After everything we've been through…' he falters and you bite your lip so hard you can feel the skin break. 'I know that rushing off and getting married isn't the right idea, because then it would be like…like we were trying to feel better by doing it. And I don't want that to be a reason to marry you. I mean I have many others but it's...it's not…' he sighs, frustrated. 'Do you know what I mean?'

You choke out a laugh around everything else vying to be heard from your mouth, because you should've known. Of course he'd get it. Of course he'd know. Because he's _Ryan_. 'I do. I…I feel the same.'

He looks relieved and picks up the necklace, the ring swinging like a pendulum and stones glinting in the soft light. You note with a start that it's probably still your perfect engagement ring - all white gold and princess cut diamonds - but while it's around your neck and not on your finger he's letting it mean whatever you want it to.

Ryan motions you closer and slips it over your head, the long chain letting it fall under the neckline of your top and rest between your breasts. You notice though, that there's a charm hanging right next to the ring, and you pick it up to look at it. There's a little silver 'o' and when you blink you feel a tear slide from your eye.

When you look up at Ryan he has a tentative, if a little sad, smile pulling on his mouth. 'Just so we don't forget.' He says, and you could've leapt across the table to hold him.

-

Lindsay slips her arm through yours as you look down at the black stone, shining bright under the Texas sun. There's a ragtag -but no less fitting - bouquet next to it that had been waiting on your desk when you came back to the office. There's piece of everyone in it; a red rose from ray, sunflowers from jack and Caiti, colourful carnations from Michael, Lindsay and Gavin, everything you could think of that matches everyone perfectly.

The bigger card, you'd slipped into your handbag. You're going to keep it with the Polaroids from Firenze. The small card with the flowers you suspect Ryan had written and slipped in there when you'd gone to get coffee in the morning. 

It just says 'for Oliver'.

You feel Lindsay squeeze your arm as soon as your hand starts toying with the ring on your necklace. You kiss your fingers and press them to the top of the surprisingly cool stone.

It's the first time you've been since it was first put there, and it feels like an age. But in the interest of healing…

'Bye, love. I'll be back soon.'

Lindsay doesn't say a word but you can feel her smile as you start to walk away, arms still linked together.

The gold letters on the black stone catch the sun.

_Oliver Steven Haywood_

_04.16.2014-04.16.2014_

_Born Sleeping; Forever in our hearts_


End file.
